1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a semiconductor device such as a liquid crystal display (LCD), and more particularly to an LCD of the integrated-driver-circuit type in which a thin film transistor (TFT) using a polycrystalline semiconductor layer is formed in the display section and the peripheral section. The also invention relates to a method of manufacturing such a semiconductor device.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, liquid crystal display systems (LCD) have been increasingly put into practice in the office automation and audio-visual equipment industries in view of the significant advantages of downsizing and reduced equipment requirements, as well as reduced power consumption. In particular, an active-matrix-type LCD, in which TFTs are arranged in a matrix, each acting as a switching element for controlling the timing for overwriting image information in the individual pixel, enables a huge-size display screen and a high-resolution animation display and is hence used as a high-quality display system for various types of television sets and personal computers.
A TFT is a field effect transistor (FET) which can be obtained by forming a semiconductor and a metal layer in a predetermined island pattern over an insulating substrate. In an active-matrix-type LCD, a pair of pixel capacitors for driving liquid crystal are respectively formed on a pair of substrates between which the liquid crystal is sandwiched, and a TFT is connected to one electrode of each pixel capacitor.
Attempts have been made to improve the performance of LCDS. To this end, an LCD has been developed in which a polysilicon (p-Si) film is used as a substitute for amorphous silicon (a-Si) film, which has been widely used in various conventional LCDS, and annealing using laser beam irradiation is carried out for formation or growth of p-Si grains. Generally, p-Si is high in mobility compared to a-Si so that TFT can be downsized, thus realizing a high aperture ratio and a high resolution. Further, since high speed TFT can be achieved due to the gate-self-align structure and the reduced parasitic capacitance, it is possible to obtain a high-speed driver circuit by forming CMOS comprising n-channel TFT and p-channel TFT. It is therefore possible to realize a reduced manufacturing cost and downsizing of the LCD module.
To form the p-Si film on an insulating substrate, it has currently been customary 1) to recrystallize the a-Si film, which has been formed at low temperature, by annealing at high temperature, or 2) to employ solid phase growth at high temperature. In either case, since the process is subject to a relatively high temperature in excess of 900xc2x0 C., a quartz glass substrate is needed as the insulating substrate in view of its high heat-resistance although there is the drawback that it is expensive. In the meantime, an alternative method employing laser-annealing has been developed in which silicon crystallization is carried out at a relatively low substrate temperature not exceeding 600xc2x0 C. so as to be able to use an inexpensive alkaliless glass as the insulating substrate. The fabrication process whose process temperature does not exceed 600xc2x0 C. throughout all of the steps of manufacturing the TFT substrate is called the low-temperature process , and is essential to mass production of low-price LCDs.
A silicon film to be formed on such an insulating substrate would not be a single crystal film but usually takes on an amorphous or a polycrystalline structure. These non-single crystal silicon film contains a large number of dangling bonds which do not bond covalently. Such dangling bonds have a trap level in the forbidden band. Since electrons are caused to move between the valence band and the conduction band via the trap level, a transistor using such a film would be high in on resistance and low in off resistance and hence low in on-off ratio. To solve this problem, it is currently known to terminate the dangling bonds with hydrogen atoms. Namely, hydrogen gas activated during or after formation of the non-single-crystal silicon is introduced to link hydrogen atoms with the dangling bonds, thereby causing the trap levels to disappear.
FIG. 1 of the accompanying drawings is a cross-sectional diagram showing a sectional structure of such a p-Si TFT; on the left side is an n-channel TFT and on the right side is a p-channel TFT. On a substrate 10, a gate electrode 11 of metal such as chromium is formed and a gate insulation film 12 of, for example, silicon nitride (SiNN) and/or silicon oxide (SiO2) is formed so as to cover the gate electrode 11. A p-Si film 23 is formed on the gate insulation film 12. For the n-channel TFT, this p-Si film 23 has a lightly doped region LD containing n-type impurities at a low density (Nxe2x88x92) utilizing the edge of an implantation stopper 14 of SiO2 patterned in the shape of the gate electrode 11 on the p-Si film 23, and source and drain regions S, D located outside the lightly doped region LD and containing the n-type impurity at a high density (N+),. For the p-channel TFT, source and drain regions 23S, 23D contain p-type impurities at a high density (P+). In either of the n- and p-channel TFTs, an intrinsic layer substantially devoid of impurities and serving as a channel region CH is located beneath the implantation stopper 14. Further, an interlayer insulation film 15 such as SiNN is formed so as to cover these regions of the p-Si film 23, and on the interlayer insulation film 15, source and drain electrodes 16, 17 of metal are formed and are connected to the source and drain regions 23S, 23D, respectively, via contact holes in the interlayer insulation film 15. In the pixel region, a non-illustrated liquid-crystal-driving electrode in the form of a transparent conductive film such as indium tin oxide (ITO) is formed on the interlayer insulation film 18 covering the source and drain electrodes 16, 17 and is connected to the source electrode 16.
In the n-channel TFT, the structure having the LD region 23LD located between the source and drain regions 23S, 23D and the channel region CH is called an LDD (lightly doped drain). In an LCD, such an LDD structure is employed for the purpose of controlling the off current. As an alternative, a double gate structure in which the gate electrode 11 and the channel region CH are formed in series may be employed with the same result.
The channel regions CH may be doped with different impurities, whose conduction types are opposite to conduction type of each TFTS, before the above-mentioned impurity implantation; the resulting TFT is called a channel-dope type TFT.
The fabrication process of this TFT will now be described. Firstly, on a relatively low heat-resisting substrate 10 such as alkaliless glass, a gate electrode 11 is formed by sputtering chromium and then etching the chromium film, whereupon a gate insulation film 12 is continuously formed of silicon nitride (SiNN) and silicon oxide (SiO2) as well as amorphous silicon (a-Si) by plasma CVD, without breaking the vacuum at all. Hydrogen in a-Si, which prevent crystallization, is then removed by dehydrogenation annealing, whereupon a polysilicon (p-Si) film 23 is formed by polycrystallizing a-Si at a temperature not exceeding the resisting temperature of the substrate 10 using excimer laser annealing (ELA). Further, a silicon oxide (SiO2) film is formed over the p-Si film 23 and then a positive photoresist is formed over the SiO2 film, whereupon the photoresist is exposed to light irradiation from the substrate side, which is so-called reverse side exposure. As the result of this reverse side exposure, the photoresist is photosensitized in such a manner that a pattern reflecting the shadow of the pattern shape of the gate electrode 11 is inverted. Subsequently, the photoresist is developed, and then with the resulting photoresist as a mask, the insulation film is etched to form the implantation stopper 14 in the same shape as the gate electrode 11. Then, with the implantation stopper 14 (photoresist) as a mask, impurity ions, such as phosphorus (P), whose conduction type is n, are doped at a low density to form a channel region CH beneath the implantation stopper 14 and a pair of lightly doped regions 23LD, one on each of opposite sides of the implantation stopper 14. After that, the photoresist is shaped into a larger size than that of the implantation stopper 14, and with the resulting photoresist as a mask, n-type impurity ions are doped at a high density to form source and drain regions 23S, 23D. As a result, for the n-channel TFT, an LDD (lightly doped drain) structure is completed in which the lightly doped (LD) region LD is located between the channel region CH and the source and drain regions 23S, 23D.
For the p-channel TFT, like the n-channel TFT, reflecting the pattern shape of the gate electrode 11, source and drain regions 23S, 23D doped with p-type impurities at a high density are formed outside the channel region CH. However, in the case of the p-channel TFT, an LDD structure is not employed.
Further, excimer laser annealing or lamp annealing is carried out to recover the crystallinity of the p-Si film 23 doped with the impurities and also to cause activation for lattice replacement of the impurity atoms.
The p-Si film 13 is then patterned in regions needed for TFT and an interlayer insulation film 15 such as SiO2 is formed so as to cover the n- and p-channel TFTs, whereupon a hydrogen plasma process is carried out to introduce hydrogen atoms into the p-Si film 23. After that, contact holes are formed and then source and drain electrodes 16, 17 are formed by forming a film of metal such as aluminum (Al)/molybdenum (Mo) over the contact holes and etching the metal film and are connected to the source and drain regions 23S, 23D, respectively, via the corresponding contact holes. A second interlayer insulation film 18 of silicon nitride (SiNN) is also formed, whereupon thermal annealing is carried out to terminate hydrogen in the p-Si film 23 to the dangling bonds of the film.
Such a hydrogenation process for terminating the dangling bonds in a semiconductor film with hydrogen atoms is exemplified by a hydrogen plasma. This hydrogen plasma process generates a plasma arc in a hydrogen atmosphere to activate hydrogen so that the activated hydrogen is added into the semiconductor film. However, as described below in detail, a hydrogen plasma process would not improve the electrical characteristics of the semiconductor device and would in fact change the characteristics for the worse, which presumably originates from the excessively high density of hydrogen. That is, if more hydrogen ions than those to be terminated in the dangling bonds exist in the semiconductor film, they would change the flat band voltage to invite a change of the threshold. Further, the on current would be lowered due to the carrier effect of the charged ions, and in the meantime, the off current would be increased or energy distribution would vary to cause the electrical characteristics to fluctuate for every semiconductor device.
Furthermore, as is common practice, such a hydrogen plasma process has been performed selectively (1) by utilizing a plasma CVD apparatus or (2) by a dedicated apparatus. In the former, in which hydrogen gas is introduced by generating plasma, although it is possible to acknowledge a high degree of technological maturity and good uniformity, it would encounter the following problems: namely, the plasma CVD apparatus itself is expensive and it is difficult to secure good conduct speed in single wafer processing. In the latter, which consists of an anneal furnace and a helical coil, although it is possible to perform batch processing for better throughput and to reduce the manufacturing cost somewhat using a relatively inexpensive apparatus, it is still unable to solve the problems of the apparatus itself being less mature and good uniformity being difficult to achieve.
With the foregoing problems in mind, it is an object of the present invention to provide a semiconductor device with a semiconductor film having excellent uniformity and characteristics, and also to a method of manufacturing such a semiconductor device.
According to a first aspect of the invention, the above object is accomplished by a semiconductor device comprising: an insulator substrate; and a semiconductor film disposed on an upper surface of the substrate and containing a specified number of hydrogen atoms equal to or less than the number of dangling bonds in the semiconductor film.
The present invention prevents the hydrogen atoms not bound with dangling bonds from, being electrically affected, which would result in adverse effects on the electrical characteristics of the semiconductor device.
Preferably the semiconductor film is a polysilicon film in which hydrogen is contained in a specified density equal to or less than 5xc3x971020 atoms/cm3.
Having this hydrogen density, the hydrogen atoms contained in the polysilicon film are bound with the dangling bonds in the polysilicon film with an adequately high probability so that the hydrogen atoms not bound with dangling bonds and likely having an adverse effect on the electrical characteristics of the semiconductor device can be prevented from existing in the polysilicon film.
According to a second aspect of the invention, a method of manufacturing a semiconductor device comprises the steps of: forming a semiconductor film on a surface of a substrate, decreasing the density of the hydrogen atoms in the semiconductor film by removing the hydrogen atoms from the semiconductor film using an annealing process; and after the annealing process, treating the semiconductor film with a process for preventing penetration of any excessive hydrogen atoms into the semiconductor film.
Using this method, the hydrogen atoms contained in the semiconductor device are prevented from becoming excessive, so that the hydrogen atoms not bound with dangling bonds are prevented from adversely affecting the electrical characteristics of the semiconductor device.
According to a third aspect of the invention, a method of manufacturing a semiconductor device comprises the steps of: forming a semiconductor film on a surface of a substrate; forming a silicon nitride film over the semiconductor film; and treating the substrate with a thermal annealing process under nitrogen atmosphere after the forming of the silicon nitride film.
Since the substrate is treated with the thermal annealing process after forming the silicon nitride film, an appropriate quantity of the hydrogen atoms contained in the silicon nitride film would move into the semiconductor film to terminate the dangling bonds in the semiconductor film, thus improving the electrical characteristics of the semiconductor device.
In the present invention, the silicon nitride film is preferably formed by plasma CVD. Using plasma CVD, it is possible to form a high-uniformity silicon nitride film over the semiconductor film and hence to increase the uniformity of density of hydrogen atoms to be supplied from inside the silicon nitride film into the semiconductor film.
According to a fourth aspect of the invention, a method of manufacturing a semiconductor device comprises the steps: forming an amorphous silicon film on a surface of a substrate; decreasing the density of hydrogen atoms, which are contained in the amorphous silicon film by removing the hydrogen atoms from the amorphous silicon film by a annealing process; then forming a polysilicon film by polycrystallizing the amorphous semiconductor film by another annealing process; forming a silicon nitride film over the polysilicon film by plasma CVD; and treating the substrate with a thermal annealing process under nitrogen atmosphere after the forming of the silicon nitride film.
If a polysilicon film is obtained by polycrystallizing the amorphous silicon film by this method, it is possible to prevent the density of hydrogen atoms finally contained in the polysilicon film from becoming excessive. Further, the thermal annealing process causes an appropriate quantity of the hydrogen atoms, which had been contained in the silicon nitride film, to move into the polysilicon film to terminate to dangling bonds in the polysilicon film, thus improving the electrical characteristics of the semiconductor device employing the polysilicon film.
According to a fifth aspect of the invention, a method of manufacturing a thin film transistor comprises the steps of: forming a gate electrode on a surface of a substrate; forming a gate insulating film and a non-crystalline silicon film in the described order over the substrate so as to cover the gate electrode; decreasing the density of hydrogen atoms, which are contained in the non-crystalline silicon film, by removing the hydrogen atoms from the non-crystalline silicon film by an annealing process; forming a polysilicon film by polycrystallizing the non-crystalline silicon film by another annealing process; patterning the polysilicon film in a predetermined shape and then forming an impurity-doped region at a predetermined area in the patterned polysilicon film; after the forming of the impurity-doped region, forming a silicon nitride film so as to cover the patterned polysilicon film by plasma CVD and then treating the substrate, on which the polysilicon film and the silicon nitride film have been formed, with a thermal annealing process under nitrogen atmosphere; after the thermal annealing process, removing selected portions of the silicon nitride film in such a manner that a surface of the impurity-doped region in the polysilicon film is exposed; and forming a source electrode and a drain electrode in the exposed portions of the impurity-doped region to thereby connect the source electrode and the drain electrode to the impurity-doped region at their corresponding portions.
By this method, it is possible to obtain a polysilicon film by polycrystallizing the non-crystalline silicon film, which defines the active region of a thin film transistor, and to prevent the density of the hydrogen atoms contained in the obtained polysilicon film becoming excessive. Further, the thermal annealing process causes an appropriate quantity of the hydrogen atoms, which had been contained in the silicon nitride film, to move into the polysilicon film to terminate the dangling bonds in the polysilicon film, thus improving the electrical characteristics of the semiconductor device employing the polysilicon film.
In the present invention, the above-mentioned individual thermal annealing process is preferably carried out at a substrate temperature of 350xc2x0 C. to 400xc2x0 C. for one to three hours. More preferably, the individual thermal annealing process is carried out at a substrate temperature of approximately 400xc2x0 C. for approximately two hours. By carrying out the thermal annealing process under these conditions, it is possible to supply an optimum quantity of hydrogen atoms into the semiconductor film or the polysilicon film.